Most read stories

Sunset

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Behind the bellicose façade lay a soft, compassionate soul. He sat within a swirl of rosy twilight hues, buoyed by the gently creeping tide. A dark wall approached and he mechanically spun and began stroking into the glassy canvas of light and ocean that lay between him…

When Bad Things Happen To Other People

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Years ago, I was involved in a freakish tragedy so startling and heartbreaking that it made the front page of not only my local newspaper, but “People” and “The National Enquirer.” I'm not going to tell you anything about it. This means that…

Coming From Alabama

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In the state that the stars fell on, Love and I stumbled upon bits of God where he forgot sky and moon, too.

The Song of Jerome

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"My love is with eggs!"

Troy

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It’s layer VII we adore/ and mourn

End of an Arabesque. Degas

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Holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a tissue in one hand, a round shape that balances the round yellow burst of light that is her dress. While the flesh of her chest bulges forward and she balances as though in a holding pattern in flight.

Burned

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They called him “Albert, the Human Armadillo,” and he was. Rows of hard scales ran down the course of his chest, and he was studied and biopsied by doctor after doctor. “Psoriasis,” they said. “Or, eczema.” They prescribed ointments and oils that left him

Storm Chasers

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“Okay,” I say, “but my point is the only way you’d ever know if someone really loved you is if they put their life on the line when it counts. Otherwise you gotta take their word for it.”

Saturday Birthdays (from FATHER MUST)

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When his mother was all dressed up on New Year’s Eve, and his father, even thought they had tickets for the dance, announced to her he wasn’t going to go, Johnny had gone into his room, put on a white shirt, a dark suit, his dress shoes, and a clip-o

The Savage (K2)

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Rises monstrous out of the Baltoro GlacierPlaying poker with oxygen levelsPlays leap frog with embolisms.Malice and vanity join forces somurder guns the air even beforethe Death Zone. Down suits, bold and cockyregisters the climber's ambitions. The Serac , a…

From a Street-Lit Dark Room

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Whenever trees or limbs fell in isolate forests—well, no narrators were ever to be found, not even beneath the larger tree trunks or under the fallen limbs.

Bunking off

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He looked like a black paper doorway pasted onto a painting of summer.

Movie Conference, 1963

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Suddenly the producer, Irving, tosses a new idea into the discussion, an idea for a possible film. Then the writer, Herbert, does the talking. He performs, in fact, puts on a one-man show. The idea! The idea! It's…

Absinthe Drinking in a Bar in Paris

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Half past six; already, through the gloom Saltwater flourish sifts from wharfs that ply Their play like girls that haunt the midnight's womb, As far it seems as walks of Barbary. Within the bar, French waitresses and sots Play dice with time awhile and rub…

The Actual Poets

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And here’s a picture of you at the end of the line to the great toilet of fiction, waiting to relieve yourself, quick before the poetry gets to you. Or worse, the actual poets.

Breaking Point

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I can do the hot coals, no problem. Or, your love, eyes closed. Or your sneer, spank, suffering, resentment, rejection.

King Street Station

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Despite the newly bright bricks and the working clock, Cassie couldn't help but take a deep breath before entering King Street Station. She had always tried to hold her breath when her family cut through it on the way to Mariners games but had never succeeded, not…

I Am Quantum

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He had a lean build, except, remarkably, his midsection was perfectly barrel-like. As if he kept an alien lifeform in his belly, cultivated by years of Pabst and Yuengling transfusions.

Unexpected Flying Objects

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Meanwhile it was four o'clock in the morning, Pacific time. Seven o'clock eastern. The cat was busy chasing imaginary mice around the hammock—at least Manuel hoped the mice were imaginary. He loaded the next digital images onto the screen. It seemed to

Downland Ballad I :Photo-disintegration

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Like a distant memory of past expectations I wander through past journeys, delineations chew on the fresh air like a discontented Wordsworth now free, free to roam where I will..

How Was Your Afternoon, Dear? 2

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The pool deck was covered with the bloody footprints of resident gawkers.

The Perfect Command

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He stood in front of her. They stood eye to eye. "You aren't supposed to look me in the eye. If I were anyone else you would be smacked down on the ground right now. Treat me as you would a lover, your master."

Marks in the Sand (Poetry-Rhythm)

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I am only ever What you seem to be Without the leverage Of sweet reality

The Tourists

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He thought of his field trip from the previous year, of Prague’s museums, statues, squares, architecture, restaurants, and various modes of transport. The town offered none of these and surely no cinema, no crowds of people, not even an old church.

A taste of competition

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We called him Mickey Habanero, because he could fill his mouth with the hottest food imaginable, the kind packed with the sort of heat that would melt the gums from the teeth of a novice, all without taking a drink of milk or anything else that would otherwise soothe the…

Bubble Rap Blues

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"The Chinese don't have no Mardy Grah, bitch."

Childbed (cenotaph song)

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Those who don’t die, desire, descend. No song aloft arises from my irk. The seeing chieftain, not of sea, nor sand, nor boat, I till nightfall stammer alive, dig boneless trenches against tiding dregs and lathe, hunt, wallow, plow the hours, call in awei

A Philadelphia Story

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In the summer of 1963 I went to Philadelphia to study with a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Deus Ex Machina

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He rolls in unbidden across the stubble fields / Old acquaintance astride a newly booming cloud/ Under sky an alien shade of strawberries whipped/ Her watch stops ticking out the rest of her/ scheduled breathing poses

C-ing History

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Conjure calamity and calamity comes.